One Wore Blue (57 page)

He strode toward her, and fear suddenly swept through her. He wouldn’t really hurt her, she assured herself. He’d never really hurt her. Not Daniel. He’d threaten, he’d taunt, but he’d never really hurt her.…

Or would he?

But she couldn’t let him touch her. She couldn’t want him again. She couldn’t fall again!

“Don’t!” she warned.

“This is one invasion of the North that is going to be successful,” he told her, his tone bringing shivers to her spine. He smiled, relentlessly coming toward her, his eyes ruthless as they fixed upon hers.

Callie knocked over a chair in his way. He barely noticed.

“Don’t, damn you! You have to listen to me—” she began.

“Listen to you!” he exclaimed. She heard his fury explode in his voice. “Callie, time is precious! I have not come to talk this night. I listened to you once before.”

“Daniel, don’t come any nearer. You must—”

“I must finish what you started, Callie. Then maybe I can sleep again at night.”

He reached for her arm, and the fire in his eyes seemed to sizzle through the length of her. She didn’t know him anymore. Or had she ever really known him? In his eyes she could see the effect of his days in the prison camp and even the days beyond. She had not imagined that he might be so ruthless, and she did not know how far he would go.

“Daniel, stop!” she hissed. She jerked free from him, turned, and ran.

He followed her.

Relentlessly.

She stopped and found a vase and tossed it his way. He ducked again, and the vase crashed against a wall. She tore through the parlor, looking for more missiles. A shoe came flying his way, a book. Nothing halted his stride.

She reached the stairs, and he was there behind her. She started to race up and realized her mistake. He was behind her. She reached the landing. When she started to run, his fingers entwined into her hair, and she was wrenched back and swept into his arms. Struggling wildly, beating her fists against his chest, she met his eyes. For a moment she was quiet, breathing hard, her breasts heaving with her exertion.

“Let’s finish what we started, shall we, angel?”

“Let me go!” Callie demanded. Tears stung her eyes. He was alive; he held her again. So many days and nights of dreams and memories had passed her by. If only he could be
made to understand, if only she could see his smile, hear his laughter once again.

If only he could believe her.

But he would never understand, and there was nothing left for her but the violence and the fury in his eyes.

“Let you go?” he repeated, his tone bitter. “Once I tried to walk away. To honor both North and South, and everything that we both held sacred. But you raced after me, angel. You could not bear to have me leave, remember? You wanted me here, Mrs. Michaelson. Here.”

He carried her into her room. A second later she found herself falling, dropped with very little care or tenderness onto the bed. She struggled to rise, her heart beating furiously. She wanted to fight him with a vengeance, and she hated the excitement that was snaking its way into her limbs.

Did it matter? Did anything matter when he was alive, when he had returned? When she could reach out her arms and hold him once again? When the night could sweep them into fields of ecstasy where there was no North and South and where the sounds of roaring cannons and rifle fire could not intrude. Sweet, magical places where there was no black powder to singe the air, no pain of death, no anguish in defeat.

No! She could not hold him. She could give nothing to him, take nothing from him, for he sought not love but vengeance. He had sworn once that he would never hurt her, and she had to believe in that vow, for in his present raw and ruthless mood, she had no way to fight him.

“Don’t!” she commanded. “Don’t even think—”

But he was suddenly straddled over her, stripping off his mustard-colored gauntlets to catch her wrists when she pressed against him.

“Just what am I thinking, Callie?” he demanded.

She lay silent, watching his eyes. There was no mercy within them. Hard and brilliantly blue, they impaled her where she lay upon the pillow, and she had no choice but to fight him with equal fervor.

“I don’t know. What are you thinking?” she asked, gritting her teeth.

“Ah, if the Yanks but had you in the field!” he murmured. “Maybe you’re recalling the last time we met. It was here. I’ll never forget, because I loved this room from the first time I saw it. I loved the dark woods of the furniture, and the soft white of the curtains, and the bed. And I loved the way you looked here, but that was later, wasn’t it? I’ll never forget your hair. It was like a sunset spread across the pillow. Sweet and fragrant and so enticing. Newly washed, like silk, and very beautiful. I couldn’t forget your eyes. So mystical, so tender, so warm a gray, with silver streaks of mercury when I drew away after the first kiss. I can go on, Callie. There’s just so much that I never forgot. I remembered you in camp, and I remembered you every moment that I plotted an escape. I thought of your mouth, Callie. It’s a beautiful mouth. I thought of the way that you kissed me. I thought of the length of your neck and the beauty of your breasts. I thought of the feel of your flesh and the movement of your hips. I remember wanting you as I’d never wanted anything or anyone before in my life, feeling more alive than ever before just because I breathed in the scent of you as I lay against your breast. And when you touched me, I think I came closer to believing I had died and gone to heaven than I’ve ever done upon a battlefield. Damn you! I was in love with you. In the midst of chaos I was at peace. I believed in you, and dear God, when I lay here with you, I even believed in life again. What a fool I was!”

“Daniel—” Callie said, desperate to explain.

“No! Don’t!” he said coldly. His fingers trembled about her wrists but did not falter in their strength. She felt the terrible tension in his limbs as his thighs tightened around her. Her heartbeat lifted and soared. “Don’t!” he insisted again. “Don’t tell me anything. Don’t give me any protestations of innocence. I’ll tell you what I’ve thought all these months. I’ve thought that you were a spy and that you deserved the fate of a spy. I thought about choking the life out of you.” He released her wrists. His knuckles moved slowly up and down the column of her throat. She didn’t move. She didn’t dare breathe. In fascination, in dread, she listened as he continued to speak. “But I could never do it,” he said
quietly. “I could never wind my fingers around that long white neck. I could never do anything to mar that beauty. Then I thought that you should be hanged or that you should be shot. Through long dark nights, Callie, I thought about all these things. But do you know what I thought about most of all?”

His face had lowered against hers. Taut, bitter, hard. She should have fought him then. Fought him while she was nearly free.

But she did not. She stared at him. At the eyes that held hers so fiercely and passionately. “What?” she whispered.

“I thought about being here with you. I thought about this bed. I thought about your naked flesh, and I thought about your smile when it seemed that you poured yourself upon me, heart, soul, and body. I thought about the way that your eyes could turn silver. I thought that all I wanted was to be back. Right here.”

His fingers moved suddenly upon the lace of her bodice. Still, Callie didn’t move. Not until he spoke again.

“I wondered what it would be like to have you when I hated you every bit as much as I once loved you,” he said softly.

At last, too late, she came to life. She tried to strike his face, but he caught her wrist. “Hate me then, you fool!” she told him heatedly. “Give me no chance, no leave, no grace, no mercy—”

“Were I to give you more mercy, I might as well shoot myself, madam!” he swore.

“You self-righteous bastard!” she told him. “Hate me, and I will despise you. You were the enemy! You are the enemy! This is Union soil! God damn you for expecting more!” Callie swore. Enraged beyond all reason, she managed in a fierce and violent burst of energy to twist from beneath him.

But he moved like lightning, dragging her back down. Struggling wildly, she fought him until her breath left her and she was caught and spent. She stared hatefully up into his eyes again.

Her situation was worse, for now his length lay against her, and all the fever and the fury that had burned and built so long within him seemed to encompass her.

“Here we are, Callie. You’ll not leave me tonight. And you’ll not betray me,” he whispered fiercely.

“And you’ll not have me!”

“I will.”

“It would be … rape!” She spit the words out.

“I doubt it.”

“Oh, you flatter yourself!”

“I’ve waited long and cold and furious nights, Callie. I will have you.”

“You won’t!” she cried to him. “You won’t hurt me. You won’t force me. You won’t because you promised! You won’t because of who you are. I know it. I know you—”

“Damn you, Callie! You don’t know me. You never knew me!”

But she did. She knew the sound of his voice, and she knew the twist of his jaw. She knew the way he stood, and she even knew the way he thought. She knew the searing blue light in his eyes, and she knew both the tempest and the tenderness that could rule the man.

And she knew the raw passion that guided him now.

His mouth descended upon hers. His lips were hard and forceful. She could not twist or turn to avoid or deter him, for his fingers threaded through her hair, holding her head still to his assault. She clamped down to fight him in any way that she could. She hammered her fists against his back; but he ignored her blows, and eventually she stopped. He robbed her of breath, and of reason and of her fury. Her defenses were weak, and her enemy in gray was powerful. Even more powerful was all the time and loneliness and even love that had passed between them. There was more than determination in his kiss. Perhaps there was even more than passion.

Her lips parted to his as the thrust of his tongue demanded. Searing hot, liquid, demanding, seductive, he played upon her senses, tasted her mouth, the deep recesses, the curve of her lip. Touched and demanded that she give in turn, and seemed to reach within her, more and more deeply and fiercely.

Her fingers ceased to press against him. She no longer tried to push away. She hadn’t the power.

“Callie!”

She heard the whisper of his voice, fierce, passionate, spoken with anger, and spoken with anguish.

“Damn, I’ll not let you sway me!” he cried out furiously. His eyes were fire as they touched hers. His fingers bit brutally into her arms.

At that moment she did not know him. She didn’t know if he would have her in anger and hatred or if he would cry out an oath and jump from her side. Suddenly, it didn’t matter.

A loud, fierce cry filled the room. It wasn’t a Rebel yell, nor was it any Yankee call.

It was a high, trembling, furious, and extremely demanding cry. As it was ignored, it grew to new, hysterical heights.

The sound of that cry stopped Daniel flat, stopped him as Callie could have never done herself.

He sat back upon his haunches; his eyes narrowed sharply upon her. “What in God’s name?”

Her breath caught. She strove for calm. She shimmied from beneath him, and he made no effort to stop her. “It’s—it’s Jared,” she said.

He stared at her blankly, like a man trying to understand code when the code was plain English.

“That’s a baby,” he said.

“Yes, it’s a baby!” she replied. She managed to leap from the bed at last. She hurried down the hall to the nursery and threw open the door.

Jared had kicked off his coverings. His hands and feet were flying furiously. His little mouth was open wide, and he was screaming with a demanding will.

Callie swept him up quickly into her arms.

Daniel stood in the doorway, having come behind her. He stared at her with amazement etched across his features. She realized that he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was looking at Jared.

“It is a baby,” he said.

He strode across the room.

Instinctively Callie held the child close to her breast. Daniel ignored her protective hold and reached for Jared with a
dogged determination. “Give him to me, Callie,” Daniel said.

Lest she hurt Jared, she had to let him go. Daniel meant to see him, and see him he would.

Daniel, ignoring Jared’s squalling and the flailing of his tiny fists and feet, walked over to the flickering lamplight that filtered in from the hallway. Callie swallowed hard, feeling shaky as she watched him scrutinize the baby clad in his white cotton shirt and diaper. He stared from Jared’s furiously puckered face to his perfect little feet. Daniel held the infant well, his hand and arm secure beneath Jared as he touched the long, wild tuft of ebony dark hair upon Jared’s head. Then Daniel’s eyes—those distinct blue eyes, mirrored in the tiny face of the child—fell upon her again.

“It’s my baby!” he exclaimed harshly.

She wanted to speak, but her mouth had gone dry.

He turned and started out the doorway.

With her baby. His baby. Their baby.

He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—be leaving with Jared, she thought. Jared was just an infant. Daniel couldn’t begin to care for him. Even he wouldn’t be so cruel.

But his footsteps were retreating down the stairway.

“Daniel!” She found her voice and a frantic energy at last. She raced after him, and this time it was she who accosted him at the foot of the stairs. “What are you doing? Give him to me! Daniel, he’s crying because he’s hungry. You can’t take him from me! Daniel, please! What do you think you’re doing?”

Daniel stood stone still, staring at her. “He is my son.”

At that moment she panicked and, frightened of his behavior, made a serious mistake. “You can’t begin to know that—”

“The hell I can’t. And what a fool you are to try to deny it,” he said softly and coldly.

“Daniel, give him back!”

“He doesn’t belong here. He belongs at Cameron Hall,” Daniel said stubbornly.

Callie’s mouth dropped. “You can’t take him! He’s barely two months old. You can’t care for him. Daniel, please!” Tears sprang to her eyes. She caught hold of his elbow and
held on. “Daniel, he needs me. He’s crying because he’s hungry. You have to give him back to me.”